Reading in the Dark
by Forensiphile
Summary: We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. "
1. Default Chapter

Title: Reading in the Dark 

Author(s): Blaze and Devanie

Rating: PG-13

Category: Jack/Samantha, AU

Spoilers: None

Summary: "We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. "

Disclaimer: We'd never take Hank Steinberg's beautiful creations from him, but maybe we'd make them a little happier. *G*

Notes: This story was born when we started to contemplate what it might be like if Jack and Samantha met without the constraints of their working relationship. From there we took it one step further and wondered, 'What if Jack wasn't married?' So, this is definitely AU. The challenge is to make it true to the characters. Hopefully we'll succeed. :D We'll try to update at least once a week, but if we are a day early or a day late, we hope you understand! The first chapter is a little short, but they do get longer.

Chapter One

  
He didn't normally do this.

Then again, he wasn't normally in a bookstore at 1:13 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, so to hell with what he normally did.

Jack Malone swallowed and, tugging his coat over his holster, took half a step forward and said, "Is that Dostoevsky?"

The blonde he'd addressed looked up from her book, eyebrow arched, and met his eyes with a slightly annoyed, "Yeah."

"I read it in Russian, my last year in college." He chastised himself for sounding like he was hitting on her.

Her eyebrow raised another centimeter, then she broke the gaze and glanced at the cover of the book. "Really?" She waited for him to confirm, then added, "I've always wanted to read it untranslated."

"It's not too different from reading it in English," he said. "Your brain's translating it to English as you go."

"I bet," she replied, meeting his eyes again for a moment, then took a quick look at her watch and said, "Well, I really have to be going. Nice talking to you."

"Yeah, you too," he said, but she was already walking away.

  
She didn't normally do this.

If by 'this' she meant stopping for coffee at a shop she didn't usually fequent, on a block she would normally walk past if it hadn't been for seeing the man who had taken an interest in her at the bookstore.

Watching as he shifted his bag from one hand to another as he opened the door, she found herself turning the corner and following in his steps until she found herself in line behind him as he placed his order.

Coffee. Regular. Black. It didn't surprise her; he didn't look like the two-percent-with-hazelnut type. He also didn't look like her type, but something inexplicable about him had caught her interest. He wasn't unattractive, but he wasn't the type that would normally turn her head. He had to be at least ten years older than her, and wore a few more pounds than was probably recommended for a man of his build. His face looked slightly worn, but he conveyed a stable, intelligent demeanor. All in all the type of man she wasn't used to approaching.

And the type that didn't usually approach her. Then again, most men didn't make their initial overture by expositing their ability to read Dostoevsky untranslated.

Lost in thought, she didn't notice it was her turn at the register until she felt a hand brush her upper arm. Startled at the contact, she flashed him an embarassed smile and approached the counter. Moments later, coffee in hand, she was suprised to see him still standing there. He spoke first.

"You didn't strike me as someone who would go for black coffee."

"That's funny, I was thinking the same thing about you," she countered, slightly taken aback by his directness.

He gave her a small smile in response to the jab. "Did you follow me here?"

"I always get my coffee at this place." The lie slipped out quickly, easily. What was she supposed to tell him, the truth? She wasn't even sure why she was there in the first place.

They moved out of the way of the other customers in line, and he stuck out a hand. "Jack."

Tentatively, she offered one in return. "Samantha."

"I was just going to sit in here for a little while. Care to join me?"

She didn't know this man, and really had no reason to think she would want to know him. She worked 14 hour days. She dated, when she could. There was really no need to expand her social circle.

Then she remembered she was the one that had followed him. The least she could do was figure out why.

  
TBC  



	2. Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks so much for the kind reviews! We so appreciate it!

Continued from chapter one.

Chapter Two:

A page brought Jack back to the office in time to meet the parents of their latest missing girl in the waiting area, the girl in question sitting sullenly in one of the plastic chairs behind them. It was the less than glorified side of their profession. For every standoff, hostage situation, and armed kidnapping, there were 10 teenagers who got pissed off at their parents and decided to spend three days living in their friend's basement.

Either way it produced a mountain of paperwork and quite a cost to the federal government. As such, he was the one burdened with the task of documenting it all. Tonight, however, he pushed aside the forms and reports, determined to leave on time. Something that didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the team.

"Leaving already? It's only six."

He looked at his watch. "Good observational skills, Martin."

The younger man rolled his eyes. "I just thought we were going to close out the case."

"It can wait till morning."

Rolling back in his chair, Danny stood and walked toward his desk. "You have a hot date, Jack?"

"I'm having dinner."

"With a woman?"

"Yes."

"Are you related?"

"No."

"Then it's a date." Danny grinned, picking up his keys.

Vivian spoke for the first time in several minutes. "Do we know her?"

Jack leveled his eyes at her, not really wanting to continue the conversation, but knowing the questions would only get more incessant later if he didn't. "I don't think so, no."

"What's her name?"

"Samantha." He left off her last name, partly because it was none of their business, but mainly because he had never caught it during their meeting in the coffee shop.

"Where'd you meet her?" Martin again.

"Bookstore." 

"What section?" Danny asked, not taking the hint as Jack walked more briskly toward the elevator.

"What difference does that make?"

"Science fiction? Travel? Computer science? You're a profiler; I don't have to tell you how telling these things can be."

"Literature."

Danny gave him an inscrutable look.

"What?" Where was the damn elevator? Jack pressed the button again, even though logically he knew it wouldn't help.

"Nothing." He paused. "Is she pretty?"

The doors opened in front of him, and he stepped inside quickly. "She's not unattractive." That was an understatement, he knew. Samantha was one of the most stunning women he had ever laid eyes upon. The kind of woman he couldn't really imagine being interested in him. Young, blonde, beautiful enough to be a model. He wondered if he should be cutting his losses already.

By the time the elevator doors opened to the lobby, Jack had remembered who had approached whom, and that if she was interested enough to have dinner, the least he could do was go.

Maude's was a hole-in-the-wall burger joint with three tables, a counter, a row of barstools, black-and-white checkered linoleum and a flamboyant owner who made a point of talking to every customer and making sure they were having a good time and a good meal. And a good meal was guaranteed—it may have been served in plastic baskets lined with wax paper, but Samantha hadn't found a better dinner in any restaurant that served food on plates with real silverware and cloth napkins.

And she'd never brought anyone here before.

Something about the restaurant was 'hers': her burger place, her restaurant, her refuge. Her nosy owner, her short-order cook, her regulars. Her hard-to-open and hard-to-close drinks cooler leaning against the back wall. And she'd never brought another person here—not her friends, not her colleagues, and never an FBI agent she met in a bookstore six hours ago.

Jesus. Today really was a day of "don't normally do this".

"You were waiting for someone, Sammy?" Maude. She followed the owner's gaze to the front door, where Jack—still in the suit he'd been wearing all day—was standing just inside of the restaurant, scanning the room for her. As his head swiveled in her direction, she gave him a small wave.

"Sorry I'm late," he greeted, eyes following Maude's departure from the table. "I got caught up in paperwork."

"Paperwork?" she asked, inexplicably happy to see him.

Jack nodded as he sat down, the chair grating on the floor loudly. "We closed a case—seventeen-year-old girl ran away."

"Did you find her or did she find you?"

"A friend called her parents." He wondered briefly if that friendship would last, if that one phone call could end it or if the girl would be able to realize her own mistake and forgive her friend. "Saw her parents on the news and told them where she was."

Sam nodded. "Happy endings are nice."

"They are," he agreed. "I don't have as many as I wish I could but…" Jack shrugged. "I'm just a hope junkie."

She gave him a small smile and said, "That's a good thing."

"Yeah." A basket nearly overflowing with french fries interrupted their eye contact, a few escaping from the container as a large man in a grease-stained apron slapped it down on the table with a quiet "From Maude." He was gone before Samantha had a chance to complain.

She shook her head as Jack plucked a fry from the container and popped it in his mouth. "Maude's… Maude never gives free food unless it's something special."

"Is this special?" he asked around another fry.

The question surprised her, but her first instinct to tell him it was special was more surprising. She'd just met him a few hours ago. She didn't even know his last name. And yet… She'd followed him to a coffee place after what anyone would've labeled a weak overture on his part. She'd never been swayed by something as dorky as "I read that in Russian" before. And Maude's, of all places, for their first non-accidental meeting? If this wasn't something different, maybe even special, then what was it? "I don't know," Sam said finally, her tone light. "To Maude, this is."

"Why?"

Samantha arched an eyebrow playfully. "Come on, Jack. You don't expect me to tell you my life story tonight, do you?"

A small smile met her question. "Maybe you're right. We'll save the life story for…" He paused. "Tomorrow night?"

"Late shift tomorrow."

"Thursday? No, not Thursday. Friday?"

"Saturday."

He mulled her suggestion for a moment, then nodded. "If no one disappears Friday night, Saturday would be perfect." His need to assure that they'd see each other again was bordering on absurd. Just as she was surprised by her reaction to him, Jack found himself puzzling over what it was about her that was making him act like a teenage boy who finally got the pretty girl to go out with him.

And decided it didn't matter why.

TBC


End file.
